Misc Are darknet markets worth it?

[Bleaney]

Bit coin is good for gaining cash, when played right.

Yeah even a chaotic drug addled wreckhead like me, (at that point in my life) managed to make quite a lot of money from BTC. Entirely by accident I might add. Me holding on to the BTC for some time was only so I could try to figure out how to use PGP on Silk Road.. As a procrastinating wreckhead with ADHD of course I never figured out PGP. And I didn't even look at my BTC account for the whole period, and had one hell of a shock when I eventually logged in and saw what had happened to the prce.

I bought 3 BTC @ £50 each IIRC. I have it on my Ebay account that I sold one of them shortly afterwards for £75.

And then my remaining 2 BTC went up to the value of £3500 over the course of that lost year or so. I didn't just have a lost weekend, I had a lost year, at least! As I was out of work at the time, and so desperate for that cash that I had no thoughts of what might happen to the price in the longer term.

The company were pretty obstructive in letting me w/d the BTC to cash, but after much to-ing and fro-ing, they eventually did!

That might sound like good fortune, which it was, until one realises that BTC prices are averaging around £87,000 each right now! So if I'd kept them until any recent time my 2 BTC would have been worth £174,000!!!!

It might have been challenging getting such high funds from the company, I might have needed legal or technical help, and they'd have wanted a cut for sure. I also suspect something dodgy might have happened to my BTC if I had kept them. Some form of theft by hackers seems likely, as I didnt have a fucking clue what I was doing.

Anyway, I didn't hold them until they were worth £174,00 but I'd never been so glad of that £3500 as I was very broke at that time. With multiple expensive habits.

I've told this anecdote once IRL, and all I got from the listeners was jealousy, disguised as disbelief, and accusations of being a drug user. I've never mentioned it IRL again, if that is the way people are going to react.

Obviously I don't have a crystal ball, and I'm no financial advisor, but my very strong hunch, which seems to be backed up by the charts, is that BTC has already had it's meteoric rise, it's already happened. I'd be very surprised if the price increases by very much again in the future, I especially dont think there will be any more absolutely exponential growth like there has been with the price going from nothing to £90,000 at peak (I think) over the last 20 years or so.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

someone I know (or knew) got rich in prison watching his btc grow, and grow, and grow!

he had around 8k when he went in, came out to close to 250k, the utter bastard (was/ probably still is a bastard too)

 

[Ismene2]

I know I'd much rather send a stiffly-worded message to somebody than to berate and chase a guy who's driving away from me and probably has at least a machete and quite possibly a gun on him.

Yeah at least the only comeback is a strongly-worded response. You've not got some naked crackhead who hasnt eaten for 3 days pursuing you down the street with a butchers knife and a hardon.

I remember one online vendor telling me he was going to tell every vendor he knew what a cunt I was.

 

[Ismene2]

Scaramouchi says bitcoin is going to a million a coin

 

[Perkins : Reborn]

Yeah at least the only comeback is a strongly-worded response. You've not got some naked crackhead who hasnt eaten for 3 days pursuing you down the street with a butchers knife and a hardon.

I remember one online vendor telling me he was going to tell every vendor he knew what a cunt I was.

On the positive side, it'd be much nicer having the heroin drop into my letterbox rather than being presented from some poor runner's arsehole.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Scaramouchi says bitcoin is going to a million a coin

it's not unlikely imo - but that would still be nowhere near the exponential growth we've seen previously (x36 in one 3 year period that the person I knew was holding for example)

 

[Stassi202]

That probably accounts for a lot of the negative stories you hear anecdotally... Somebody has a bad experience, gets scammed because they don't know what they're doing and then tells everyone they can that the "darkweb" is full of scammers. But then reports like the one above are just using shoddy data which isn't representative of anything to sell a story.

Anecdotally…definitely not a word that fits into this narrative. I’m not being rude, just trying to be realistic. Just guessing, but am I correct by saying that you have never personally accessed the darknet? Respectfully, you have displayed a level of naivety by saying, the “ ‘darkweb’ is full of scammers”, which is not an accurate representation. Think about that…the darknet exists because of scammers, the full reason for its encryption, security and difficulty at gaining access

 

[Perkins : Reborn]

A great bunch of lads, those darkweb criminals. Model minority.

 

[Ismene2]

Salt of the earth those darknet lads.

Mind you the darknet seems to be dead on it's arse now - it's all on Telegram.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Anecdotally…definitely not a word that fits into this narrative. I’m not being rude, just trying to be realistic. Just guessing, but am I correct by saying that you have never personally accessed the darknet? Respectfully, you have displayed a level of naivety by saying, the “ ‘darkweb’ is full of scammers”, which is not an accurate representation. Think about that…the darknet exists because of scammers, the full reason for its encryption, security and difficulty at gaining access

Thing is....he didn't say that at all! Give it another read...

 

[Stassi202]

What is your level of experience?

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

What is your level of experience?

Me? With reading comprehesion? Extensive!

 

[Stassi202]

Thing is....he didn't say that at all! Give it another read...

I don’t want to bicker over the tone of a text message…is that ok with you? Your interpretation is correct as far as I’m concerned

 

[Stassi202]

I feel like this is a gay sauna question.

Why is it a gay sauna

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

I don’t want to bicker over the tone of a text message…is that ok with you? Your interpretation is correct as far as I’m concerned

me neither, it's ok with me for sure...it wasn't a tone though, it was his actual words and they weren't ambiguous (helpful on a forum)

enjoy the rest of your day friend

 

[Stassi202]

me neither, it's ok with me for sure...it wasn't a tone though, it was his actual words and they weren't ambiguous (helpful on a forum)

enjoy the rest of your day friend

I get it. Still, I am curious about your level of experience/knowledge around drug use as well as the darknet…

 

[Bleaney]

I get it. Still, I am curious about your level of experience/knowledge around drug use as well as the darknet…

Oh man, your take on both members could not be more wrong. @Shinji Ikari has more technical prowess and dark web knowledge than anyone else currently posting on EADD, combined with the ability to explain things coherently, and @ageingpartyfiend has extensive, wide ranging, long term experience around drug use.

I don't get why you seem to be doubting these guys. It seems that it may be a reading comprehension issue as APF suggested.

With all due respect, can I ask if you are heavily UTI of anything right now?

 

[bvc]

Yup

How long have you been working with the dark net? I'm trying to learn more about it.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

How long have you been working with the dark net? I'm trying to learn more about it.

Depends what you mean. I started playing with tor about 15 years ago but I didn't find much practical use for it until 2020 when lockdown drove me to make the mailman my primary drug dealer.

If cryptocurrency encryption and good opsec practices coupled with an academic interest in the DNM scene is what's driving you then the DNM bible is a good read. You can Google that in your own time.

Anecdotally…definitely not a word that fits into this narrative. I’m not being rude, just trying to be realistic. Just guessing, but am I correct by saying that you have never personally accessed the darknet? Respectfully, you have displayed a level of naivety by saying, the “ ‘darkweb’ is full of scammers”, which is not an accurate representation. Think about that…the darknet exists because of scammers, the full reason for its encryption, security and difficulty at gaining access

Derp.

Oh man, your take on both members could not be more wrong. @Shinji Ikari has more technical prowess and dark web knowledge than anyone else currently posting on EADD, combined with the ability to explain things coherently, and @ageingpartyfiend has extensive, wide ranging, long term experience around drug use.

I don't get why you seem to be doubting these guys. It seems that it may be a reading comprehension issue as APF suggested.

With all due respect, can I ask if you are heavily UTI of anything right now?

Thing is....he didn't say that at all! Give it another read...

 

[Bleaney]

it's not unlikely imo - but that would still be nowhere near the exponential growth we've seen previously (x36 in one 3 year period that the person I knew was holding for example)

I really dunno. None of us does obviously. But the price could just as easily halve, quarter or completely collapse to zero. Dependent on many things that are currently unforeseeable.

I watch a few financial / investment channels on youtube and some of them seem to be as well informed as anyone.

Several of these guys state that Bitcoin, mainly due it's extreme volatility and unpredictability, and lack of anything underpinning it, isn't an investment, it's speculation, which has a slightly different meaning, in finance terms.. All I can do is defer to their knowledge and experience, but it's one of those that just rings true to me.

I really fear for the people treating it as a serious investment and putting high proportions, or all, of their investment funds into BTC. If they are doing that, they should be prepared to loose everything. I wouldn't go above the 5-10% total expsoure that the 'experts' recommend for the people that want a bit of the action of something relatively exciting, with it's high risk, along with the possible potential for huge gains, (but also for catastrophic losses.) They might as well go to the casino really, but that's just my opinion, and probably overstating things.

I only use the currency for purchases with vendors that insist you pay with BTC.

I rarely think about 'if only I'd kept my 3 x £50 bitcoins, I'd now have at least £250k.' Such thoughts are obviously futile. I just was not in any position to be able to not need that 3.5k at the time, and I was not in any position to get clean quickly and get and keep a job quickly at that particular time either. IIRC I wasn't even signing on, because of all the bullshit about having to keep continually documenting all the job seeking activities you were doing, amounting to 35 hours per week, or get your benefits stopped.

I'm not workshy or lazy or anything like that, if I like a job I'll put in the hours, often extra hours, and hard work is not a problem. I just wasn't really fit for work at that stage, due to everything else that was going on.